Soft-body robot moves like an earthworm, survives hammer blows

Designers continue to push the boundaries of what the robots of tomorrow will be capable of. We have ever more realistic humanoid robots, robots that can climb stairs, run, be pushed and don’t fall over, and now we have a robot that is soft and moves just like an earthworm.

The autonomous soft-body robot, known as Meshworm, has been developed at MIT and is created almost entirely of soft materials. The clever bit is how it moves though, relying on nickel and titanium wire to create artificial muscles that encircle its body.

An earthworm uses two muscle groups to inch itself forward, flexing and contracting its entire body in the process. This is known as peristalsis. The research team formed the equivalent muscles out of wires and wrapped them around a flexible mesh body. An electric current is then applied in varying amounts allowing the wire to contract and extend the mesh body just like the earthworm does.

As the Meshworm robot is soft, it can cope with a lot of abuse. While in motion, tests showed it can sustain heavy, repeated hits such as being struck with a hammer or having an adult human step on it. In all cases the robot just kept on going as if nothing had happened.

The Meshworm is still in the early stages of development, but there’s already a number of uses for it. As its movement relies only on the body flexing, it is well suited to move across a wide range of surfaces as well as inclines and descents. Its controlled flexibility also means it could be used in the field of medicine, for example, in designing new endoscopes or prosthetics.

The Meshworm’s development has been supported by DARPA, so don’t be surprised if we see some military uses for both soft-body robotics and artificial, shape morphing muscles.